The present invention relates to roller skates, and particularly to roller skates having improved fastening means by which the skates can be fastened to the shoes of a user.
For satisfactory and successful use of roller skates it is vitally important that they may be readily fastened to different types of shoes, in particular to ordinary walking shoes such as are commonly worn by children and young adults. Moreover, the fastening of the roller skate must not interfere with the movement of the foot and ankle joints.
It is known that, if at all possible, the rolling action of roller skates should be as similar as possible to the sliding of ice skates. Single tracked roller skates (that is roller skates having two or more wheels one behind the other in tandem) have for that purpose already been developed; such are described, for example, in German patent Nos. 89 343, 223 485 and 857 006. However the fastening of such roller skates proved to be unsatisfactory because single tracked roller skates demand a tighter fit to the foot than conventional roller skates having four wheels or rollers which are conveniently referred to as "double tracked" roller skates since they have two pairs of side-by-side rollers defining two rolling tracks. Known fastenings for single tracked roller skates do not offer sufficient support for the ankles of a wearer and thus twisted ankles frequently occurred in their use. To try and counteract this, the rollers were provided with a wider contact surface, but this in turn lead to a worsening of the rolling action, making it similar to that of double tracked skates.